MARKAN MEDITATIONS

Meditations in the Gospel of St. Mark

St. Mark 12:35-40

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IN THIS section of Mark's Gospel it is the turn of Jesus to challenge the teachers of the Law who had been so pressing to seek his downfall. The big failure of these teachers of the Law was that they failed to recognize Jesus as their Messiah, and so rejected the claims of Jesus. The evil of their failure was because, as teachers to whom the people looked up as an example and accepted as their teacher, they were leading the people astray and teaching them to reject Jesus also. Their error and failure was causing great loss and danger to others. This is always the outcome of ministers in the church who fail to receive the Gospel and deny the truth as it is in Jesus. They have the souls of others in their hands. People heed what they say, and these people are thus prevented from receiving the blessings of the truth. These words are relevant to all teachers in a general way, calling them never to question the truth in God's Word and set their reason over the Word of God.

Jesus is such a wise and clever teacher. He tackles these teachers of the Law on their own ground. He questioned them on what they did affirm, but then challenged them from the Old Testament Scriptures, which they claimed to accept and teach, concerning what they rejected. The Teachers of the Law said that the Christ, the Messiah, came from the stock of David. In his question Jesus was not questioning the validity of this belief. Jesus, according to the flesh, descended from the line of David. His bodily antecedents could be traced back to David. Indeed the Scriptures reveal this. It is also a fact of history.

What the teachers of the Law rejected was the testimony of the Scriptures to the deity of the Messiah, that he was truly God as well as human. Jesus points to a place in the Scriptures where David himself gave the Christ divine honours. By this question he challenged the teachers to accept that the Christ had been foretold to be God as well as man.

It is plain from the reaction of the crowd in verse 27 that the teachers of the Law had no answer to the question of Jesus. Yet in spite of the fact that the truth was shown them plainly they refused to accept it, and persisted in the arrogance of their own opinion. It is very hard for sinful human beings to admit where they are wrong, and specially so for these teachers of the Law. They must have felt that if they admitted their error they would lose all authority before the people. In actual fact people usually look up to teachers when they are able to admit where they have gone wrong, and are ready to correct their beliefs.

By his question Jesus was not like the teachers of the Law who wanted to score points and to bring Jesus into disrepute. Rather Jesus had two purposes, the first was a concern for the eternal welfare of the teachers themselves. It was a concern that they should accept the truth, and thus enter into salvation, and escape the judgement of leading others astray. The other purpose was for the soul safety of the people who were taught by these teachers. He wanted them to know the truth the teachers would not tell them, and to be warned that all the teachers did teach was not always all the truth.

Jesus exposes two errors which we all need to take note of. The teachers were in error because of their ignorance of the Scriptures, and their refusal to accept the Scriptures. Jesus points out that the Scriptures are God's life-line to us. To accept and believe the Scriptures is to believe the saving and life giving truth. How we need to know the Scriptures and to also accept and believe them, for only in this way do we have life.

Jesus then exposes the folly of exalting human wisdom above that of God and the Scriptures. It was the arrogance of the Teachers of the Law which made them make their wisdom the final arbitrator over Scripture. This kept them in error and bondage. The one who has life has no confidence in the flesh or human wisdom, but finds true wisdom in the Word of God.

When the teachers refused to repent, Jesus then directly warns the people concerning the Teachers of the Law, exposing their inner character of pride - they liked to wear expensive clothes and parade themselves and seek the praise of men. Further they developed such an exalted opinion of themselves and the rightness of all their actions, that they thought others were created just for their pleasure and so they exploited the poor and the vulnerable in society like the widows.

If we are proud and set our reason above the Word of God, it will not be long before our sinful nature lead us into other evils, and bind us more deeply in the ways of the flesh. Jesus ends the passage by the warning that such conduct as that of the Teachers of the Law would not go unnoticed by God, but would receive in the end the appropriate judgement of God.

All of us are prone in one way or another to succumb to the evil ways of the flesh unless we let ourselves be completely governed and led by the Word of God, interpreted to us by the Holy Spirit. The way of holiness and life is to meet with God in his Word daily, so the Word of God is always in the forefront of all our life and thinking.